Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127676
:TPaul CarrUthersW E D .,N. AR O .' By e calls every two or three months, sometimes to complain, but mostIy just to make sure I know how he feels about certain things, He figure s I'm an expert on motorcycles, motorcycle racing and life, so the majority of our conversations are limited to any of those three. He lives deep in .the Baja California Peninsula, surfing, riding motorcycles and personal watercraft, and drinking his life away south of the border. He has plenty of money, no responsibilities, no one to worry about, and for that mat ter, no one to worry about him. This relaxed lifestyle gives him plenty of time to think . No t all cif hi s thoughts a re good . He's opinionated and he's not afrai d to let you know what he thi nks. At times it makes for good conversation . He 's n ot as hi p as he th inks. In fact , he tends to be a littl e behind the times. He tends to be longwinded , but he means well. And he 's an avi d Cycle News reader, so I gu ess lowe him the time, and the answers. Here's my latest con versation with Pablo. "What up, Paul?" " Nice to h ea r from you, .Pa blo . What's on you r mind?" "Well, my man, I jus t wanted to give you some grief about tha t fish wrap you pu t out every week. I'll try and be nice, and I'll try and throw in a few compliments eve ry now and then just to ease the pain." "Make my day." "I just received my latest issue. Nice cover. Do you pa y Kit Palmer to go to Hawaii, or does he pay you? And if he gets paid, where do I send my application?" "Kit's a lo-year man. If you put in 10 years, you deser ve a few trips to Hawaii. Put it this way; for every trip to Hawaii, there're five trips to Mill ville, Minnesota. And there're 43 conversations w ith millionaire teenagers, all of w hom are complaining about one-lined race tracks, sore ankles, and the hi gh cost of a Ferarri tune-up. As far as the application goes, send it in. You'll sta rt by ed it ing 60 stories a week fo r the "Even ts" section before progr essing to the annual Buyer ' s Gu ide, in which you 'll ha ve ample op po rtu ni ty to confuse our readers by calling a Gold Wing a YSRSO. Following your stin t wi th the Buyer's Gu ide, your first assignment on the road will be the World Mini Grand H Prix in Las Veg as. It ' s sure to be 110 degrees, which will equal half of the 220 mini bike fathers who will try and tell you tha t their son is the next Rick Johnson. If your career continues to thrive, you'll move on to a possible slot covering endurance road racing and..." "Hey, isn 't that the Chican ery guy 's beat?" "The Chicanery guy?" "You know, Henry Ray Abrams. The funny guy on the back page. The lover of all humans. Mr. Cynic ." "Oh, Henny. It's Henny Ray Abrams. No t Henry, He nny. Well, endurance racing has becom e one of Abrams' many fortes . Althou gh he complains loud and often a bo u t covering the endu rance races, I truly believe tha t he favors them over the Grands Prix, which he also covers w ith some regulari ty. Look at it this way; who is more likely to give yo u a colorful quote about th eir se tu p, Scott Zamp ach or Al essand ro G ram ign i? And, as we all know, it 's not whether you win or lose, it's how you did w ith your setup." "How come you . don't cover endurance races, Paul? " "Time. " "What do mean, time?" "Tee times, mostly. Saturday after noons w ere made for golf, not endurance racing. I made a promise to myself early in my career that I wouldn't cover any ra ces that la sted more than 50 minutes - unless they we re held during the week and close to home. I also ha ve a hard time watching someth ing that seems so unorganized. The top teams are fine. They generally know when they're s upposed to pit, who is supposed to ride the bike next little things like that . The lesser teams ...well, there've been times when Moe - no, not Eric - comes into pit lane to hand the bike over to Curly, and Curly's s till back in the trailer thinking about his setup." ':Speaking of road racing, the Aussie seems to be kicking their butts all over the plac e this year." "Troy Corser?" "Well, him too, I gu ess. 1 was talking about Doohan. [eez, now that you mention it, wha t aren't the Au stralians winning?" "The World Cup." "It mu st be the bikes. The Australians are winning because they're on the best bikes, right? I mean that' s the only way those guys can possibly bea t the Americans. Corser's got that tr ick Ducati which is way too light, way too fast and has w a y too few cylinders, and Doohan's Honda 's twice as fa st as everything else. And he's probably got tires the other gu ys can 't gel. Michelin's an Australian company, right? Give me a br eak. Pu t Schwantz on that Honda and it'd be over. Throw Mike Smith on that Ducati...see ya later, Aussies.' "As an Australian citizen, I guess it wouldn't be appropriate for me to defe nd our complete and u tter domination of road racing in 1994." "What's this our stuff? I guess it's just a hop, skip and jump from Lake Forest, Ca lifornia, to Sydney, Australi a? Las t year you we re claimi ng to be a Texan. Anyw ay, enou gh abou t road racing. Talk to me about the dirt tr ack series. The roundy-round stuff. Now th at 's a little piece of Am ericana. What's up with Steve Morehead? One minute you exp ect to see him endors ing the H air Dub for Men, and the next min ute he's destroying Parker and Carr." "I don't thin k the hair thing carries 'm u ch weight. There a re a lot of fast gu ys out there w ho don't have much hair. Heck, look at Kenny Roberts. Even Scott Russell's getting a little thin on top . And Carr and Parker's hairlines don't exactly start at the ir eyebrows." "What about the Gospel, according to Cycle N ews?" , "I don't follow where you 're headed on this one." "I'm talking about Jeff Stanton. One week I read in your fine p ublication that he's ready to take on the world for a few more years. Two or three weeks later, he says in the same fine publication tha t he's retiring. What gives? How do you expect me to believe that Kenny Roberts is taking the Marlboro money to Honda, that the Harley-Davidson VRIOOO will eventually be competitive, and that the Isle of Man is really not that dangerous, if I ca n' t trust yo u on the Stanton thing?" "Sorry. You can't win 'em all." "Hey, at least we have television." "What's that suppo sed to mean? " "TV , man. There's racing on ever y wee k now. Let's see, ju st la st week 1 watched th e Southwick MX, a Grand Prix from Austria, World Superb ike s from Timbuktu , AMA. road racing from W i scons in . , The y ' v e even got Fre ddie Spencer." "At Road America? " "No the GPs. He's in the stud io w ith Dave Desp ain. You know Despain. The guy's a living television leg end . And Spencer's not that bad. You've got to 'ad mit, the guy's been ther e. H e gives good backgroun d on what's going on, and if an y of th e top guys ever lose a con tact lens, he'll tell us wha t it's like. Hey , that's a bad joke. Sorry , Fred . Seriously, though, he's d oing a good job wi th the TV gig. He's even stopped saying 'absolutely' a few hun dr ed times a race." I" 25 YEARSAGO... August 5, 1969 Ph o to of Chu ck Palmgren and Me rt Laww ill d ici ng a t the San ta Rosa Mile was featured on the cover 25 - . . .. .. - years ago. Palmgren won the event - run on a horse track in Californ ia - for his first-ever AMA National victory, while Lawwill finishe d thir d to further extend his cha mpionship points lead. Gary Nixon crashed at the race, breaking his leg in several places... Ameri can Eagle took out a full-page ad after three riders, aboard American Eag le mot orcycles, won three classes .a t a 3-Hou r Team Motocross at Carlsba d Raceway ... Motorcycle d ared e vil Evel Kn i e vel crashed d ur ing a practice jump in San Francisco in pr eparation for his upc oming Canyo n Jump . His bike's swingarm broke in ha lf and the wheel came off, re sulting in Knievel cras hin g unhurt A l into a pa rked taxi... A sleeveless Ga ry Bailey won a local motocross race in Elsinore, California, and he was awarded a check for an airline trip to England for a race. Bailey won the trip by accumu lating the best po int total in a series of MX races p romoted by CMe. A photo was run of a beard less Stu Peters, CMC foun der, handing the check over to Bailey. 15 YEAR SAGO... August 1, 1979 I 'I M ark "The Bomber" Barnett w as featured on the cover -1Iiiii" ';;;;' of Issue #29 in 1979, ju mping his works Suzu ki RA125 at the Valvoline U.S. 125cc GP at Mid-Ohio Motocro ss Park. Barnett traded 1-2 moto finishes w i th Broc Glo ver . Be lg ia n Gas t o n Rahier, aboard a Yama ha, was the top European fi nisher, in third ... He ik k i Mikkola won the Swiss 500cc MX GP, while Ame rican Brad Lack- rl<:=,...,._._ e y went DN F-4 .. . Steve Ekl und 'Ied all but the first eight laps to win the Grand N ationa l Cha m pio ns h ip Asco t TT in Gar dena, California over Rick Hocking U;'::;/:;.4.~'17",, i . .. a nd Randy Goss .. . W e .......... interviewe d the AMA's p ro fession al racing commissioner, Mike DePrete, regarding the AMA's proposal of putting carb uret or restrictor p lates in 750cc d irt track machinery. The AMA's thinking was that by restricting 750cc bikes, 500cc bikes wo ul d be co mpetitive - which would, in theory, open up th e G NC series to m ore bra n ds of motorcycles... "Education, not regulation," was the title of a feature concerning motorcycle safety... Bob Carpenter rode a Kawasaki Z-1 to victory at the NHRA Su mmernationals at Raceway Park in Englishtown, New [ersey;.. MXer Larry Broo ks wo n the Mini Intermediate class a t Ind ian Dunes in Valencia, California. - "So tell me, Mr . TV, who w on Road America? It was so long ago I'm having a hard time remembering." "Very funn y. Tell me something, Mr. Editor, just wh en does the AMA plan on announcing the r iders for the ISDE team? Are yo u guys holding back on me, or what?" "I think' they 're waiting fo r th is World Cup thing to die down a little bit so they can get more coverage in the national press. Think of it this way: If you were a report er for the New York Tim es, how keyed-up could you get over whether or not Guy Cooper was going to make the Trophy Team , when you're still preoccupied with whether or not Leonardo will score a goal with h is head in the 81st minute? Gooooooooooal!" "Fair enough . Hey , I see one of your gu ys is going to ride in the Nevad a Rally. A week in the d esert ? What's up with that? Was he having tro ub le getting an appointmen t fo r a r oo t canal?" . "Oh, that's Chris Jonnum. I think he spen t too much time in Italy. This rally th ing has taken over his life. It's rally this, rally that. Believe it or not, the guy is actually fluent in Italian - not that it does him much good when ordering at the Rally's burger joint down the street. Anyway, when do we get to the compliments?" 'The what?" "At the start of our conversation, you mentioned so mething ab ou t a compliment." "You've got mo re hair than Mo rehead." 'Thanks." a ~'OOKiN~' BACK.ยท.' j . 5Y SAGO...July 26,1989 EAR on Lechien graced the cover, which accompanied a rep ort of the Troy National MX in Ohio. Lechien won the pre miere 250cc class over Jeff Ward and Rick Johnson, b u t Jeff Stanton clinched the series championship. Guy Cooper w on the 125cc class over Mike Kiedrowski and Damon Bradshaw... Scott Parke r scored a narrow and thrilling win in front of 15,000 spectato rs at the Sp rin gfield Mil e. Parke r passed both Chris Carr and Steve Morehead on the last lap to take the win. Mike Hale won the Junio r National...We featured an interview with Trampas Parker who, at that time, was leading the Wo rld Championship 125cc MX Series point standings... Ed Lojak finished ahead of Scott Plessinger and Joe Zierman to win the Millville National Hare Scrambles in Minnesota...Alessandro Puza r won a 125c MX GP c in Ireland...Stephane Mertens and Alex Vieira traded wins at the World Championship Superbike round Austria . C\' R 75